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A Viral open-source AI agent previously known as “Clawdbot” has been renamed to “Moltbot” after its creator said Anthropic raised trademark concerns around the name and branding.
The project, built by developer Peter Steinberger, quickly gained attention in the AI community for being a practical “agent” style assistant that can carry out tasks across apps, rather than just chat. But Steinberger said the Clawdbot name created confusion with Anthropic’s Claude branding and mascot, and he was asked to change it.
While the name change itself was relatively straightforward, the rebrand triggered chaos almost immediately. Several reports say scammers and opportunists seized the moment to impersonate the project and push crypto-related schemes, including fake tokens, during the transition period.Had to rename our accounts for trademark stuff and messed up the GitHub rename and the X rename got snatched by crypto shills.
That went wonderful.@moltbot it is. — Peter Steinberger 🦞 (@steipete) January 27, 2026
Importantly, the underlying product has not changed. Steinberger has stressed that Moltbot is the same tool as Clawdbot, just under a new name, and continues to operate as an open-source project.
The incident has also sparked a wider debate in the AI developer community about how fast-growing agent tools are becoming targets, not only for trademark pressure but also for security threats, impersonation, and social engineering attacks.